Observations on economics, the academy, the wider world, and things that run on rails.

16.9.13

THE ULTIMATE NANNY HAS A MASTER'S DEGREE.

The ultimate First World Problem: the winners of the credentialing race seek the also-rans to watch their spawn.

[Cliff] Greenhouse [president of a search firm identifying good help for the 1%] assured me that race has never factored into his clients’ requests—that he has placed comparable numbers of whites, blacks, Latinas, and Asians in a range of homes, and that they make comparable salaries. It's simply that, in the wake of the recession, homegrown college grads are pursuing new career options. And that, as Greenhouse told NBC, moms these days "aren’t going to work full-time unless they can leave their children in the care of someone they consider a peer." Who counts as a peer, exactly, is never specified.

The article, from (not surprisingly) Slate, includes the obligatory hand-wringing about competition from over-credentialed graduates seeking some way to pay down their student loans (or keep up their social and professional networks in upscale cities?) crowding out the au pairs and striving immigrants. "It would be a shame if parents’ misguided preoccupation with academic credentials forced qualified people out of one of the few fields that remain viable to them." On the other hand, perhaps the more reflective yuppie moms will use the life story of their nannies to motivate their kids to greater effort, or perhaps, more practical majors.